David Bloomer/ShowtimeHomeland is going to look a lot different when it returns for season five.
After the insanity of the season-four finale (or rather, the insanity leading up to the finale, and shockingly quiet finale episode), the hit Showtime series is jumping ahead in time...by a lot.
"There's going to be a time jump of a few years," showrunner Chip Johannessen reveals to E! News. Whoa!
And fans can expect every single character to be in extremely different circumstances when Homeland picks up again.
"It's going to be at least two years later and so many things will have changed for Carrie," showrunner Alex Carey tells E! News. "She's a mother, and most notably, she's not in the CIA anymore. She has a new purpose and passion and I can probably tease that that's not going to last long. She's going to have a relationship with German intelligence, and that's going to be one of the more interesting relationships this season because they are an ally, but it's a pretty rocky relationship regardless."
Homeland star Claire Danes is excited to explore just how much her character Carrie's life has changed in the past few years.
"I think the idea is that she's left the CIA, she's utterly disenchanted and isolated, and during those intervening years, she's acquired an actual life, which she's maybe never had before," Danes tells us. "That will be interesting, to see her in that context, to be in a relationship, to actually be committed to her child, to have friends. We really have never seen her be relatively normal and social. I mean, I'm sure that will be completely ruined two episodes in!"
Carrie...committed to her child? What would that even look like?!
"She has come into her own with motherhood," showrunner Meredith Stiehm says. "She's grown up. Instead of her being the problem child, she's now the mother, she's lost her father, and she's grown into the adult of the family. The rockiness of being a mother happens to a lot of women, and they get through it after a couple years so Carrie is in a good place now."
But now that Carrie is a mother and no longer working for the CIA, what does that mean for her relationship with Quinn (Rupert Friend) after they kissed in the season-four finale?
"Carrie and Quinn have parted ways after they came together in the finale," Stiehm says. "Quinn was actually really ready to try things, but Carrie sabotaged it, and I think she regrets that. She tried to get him back and he was gone, so she knows she screwed that up. It's two years later, and they've both moved on to other things. But something's always in the air and when they cross paths again, we'll see what happens. I'm excited to see where their paths cross."
When pressed for more deets on the Carrie-Quinn dynamic in season five, all the showrunners were very cagey...surprise, surprise!
"We're still planning out what we want to see for that," Carey says. "I think Quinn is going to be a very different person. His experiences in the past few years have changed him. Plus, she has broken free of the CIA whereas he's really tied into it, more so than we've ever seen before."
But at least one showrunner is pushing for a Carrie-Quinn relationship, and is the one to thank for that kiss in the season-four finale.
"We debate this a lot. It's very split in the writers room on whether or not that's a good idea," Stiehm says. "I really advocate it because I felt there was something in the air between them from the beginning, and then three years go by and there's so much they've done together and have been through together, and I believe that kind of stuff leads to a closeness that you don't have with other people, so it felt inevitable to me."
What are you most excited to see from Homeland season five? Hit the comments section below to weigh in!